Emaar eyes tower even taller than Burj Khalifa

Emaar Properties is considering building another world-record breaking tower bigger than its own Burj Khalifa, which is the current holder of the world’s tallest building, according to its chairman Mohamed Alabbar.

“We may try to build something a little taller,” Alabbar said at a conference in Dubai on Wednesday. “The emirate needs another tall building. Dubai is only about 30-year old, so we have a lot of time and lot of investment left,” he added.

Emaar Properties built the 828-metre Burj Khalifa tower in 2010 and is also involved in the Kingdom Tower, which is being developed by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and is under construction in Jeddah. The Saudi tower is reportedly set to be as high as 1km tall.

Already the holder of the world’s tallest building title, the new plans Alabbar has hinted at would have appeared fanciful three years ago, when a crash in the inflated real estate market triggered a corporate debt crisis and a slew of company restructurings.

But Dubai, home to an archipelago of man-made islands and an indoor ski slope in one of its shopping malls, staged a dramatic economic recovery last year, partly because of a tourism boom.

Tourist arrivals grew 10 percent and hotel revenue rose 19 percent in the first half of 2012. Some state-linked companies have been working through their debt loads while some property prices have started to rebound.